600 million middle-class Chinese by 2020: think tank – Xinhua | English.news.cn – China’s rapid urbanization will greatly increase its number of middle-class people to 600 million and support an economic growth between 7 percent and 8 percent annually by 2020, a government think tank chief predicted here on Saturday. Speaking at a reform forum in Haikou, capital of China’s southern-most province of Hainan, Chi Fulin, executive president of the China Institute for Reform and Development, said, “As urbanization will create huge domestic demand potential, China still has ample room for transition and reform for the coming decade.”

Overstating revenue growth | China Accounting Blog | Paul Gillis – Analysts need to be careful when evaluating reported growth rates – is the company really growing its sales when measured in RMB? I believe that all Chinese companies should be using the RMB as a reporting currency. When they don’t, the SEC ought to be asking for additional disclosures as to the effect of currency rate changes on revenue growth rates.

Chanos Unmoved by Chinese Banks’ Biggest Rally Since Jan. – Bloomberg – “You can’t look at a month and say that’s the trend, or something’s changed,” Chanos, who oversees $6 billion as the founder and president at Kynikos Associates Ltd., said in a Bloomberg television interview. Bad loans peaking at 3 percent, “seems awfully Pollyannic,” he said.

China to promote rising star in Bo Xilai’s old stomping ground: sources | Reuters– Southwestern Chongqing, left reeling in the wake of a corruption and murder scandal, is expected to go to Sun Zhengcai, a former agriculture minister and current party boss of the chilly northeastern province of Jilin. The export powerhouse of Guangdong in the south, facing an economic slowdown due to the global downturn along with rising social tensions, will probably be handed to Inner Mongolia party boss Hu Chunhua, sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters.

Is it finally time for China to push asset disclosure of officials? | Offbeat China– Zhang Tiancheng, the deputy secretary of Hanshou county Politics and Law Committee from Hunan province, may make some waves by his recent disclosure of personal assets. On October 29, Zhang, under the name of 洞庭渔夫—-张 on Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblogging service, posted 10 messages of detailed accounts of his family’s income and assets. All 10 messages started with “To answer netizens’ requests, I’m now disclosing my income and assets…”

China’s Island Strategy: “Redefine the Status Quo.”-The Diplomat-Taylor Fravel – rather than a chaotic, uncoordinated, 9-headed dragon approach, it kind of looks like the Chinese knew what they were doing all along, and have very adroitly used these regional disputes to advance their interests and create a new status quo?// The most striking feature of China’s behavior in its maritime disputes this year has been efforts to redefine the status quo. In its disputes with the Philippines and Japan, China has used the presence of its civilian maritime law enforcement agencies to create new facts on the water to strengthen China’s sovereignty claims.

The Problem With the Pivot | Foreign Affairs– robert ross..and trade and engagement will lead to democracy?// Unfortunately, however, this shift was based on a fundamental misreading of China’s leadership. Beijing’s tough diplomacy stemmed not from confidence in its might — China’s leaders have long understood that their country’s military remains significantly inferior to that of the United States — but from a deep sense of insecurity born of several nerve-racking years of financial crisis and social unrest…The new U.S. policy unnecessarily compounds Beijing’s insecurities and will only feed China’s aggressiveness, undermine regional stability, and decrease the possibility of cooperation between Beijing and Washington.

CHINASCOPE – PLA Daily: Resolutely Follow the Commands of Hu Jintao – On November 1, 2012, the People’s Liberation Army Daily issued an editorial in support of Hu Jintao. The editorial stressed the Communist Party’s absolute control over the military. It stated that the military is the main support for the Party and the country; it is responsible for the Party’s political dominance, implying that the role of the military in the rifts among the Party leaders is critical. The editorial warned, “The hostile forces in and outside China are ready to make trouble. … (We) must keep a clear mind and take a firm stand on major issues

CHINASCOPE – Military Expert: China Is only 15-Years behind the U.S. and Russia in Fighter Development – Commenting on the significance of the event, China’s aviation expert, Yongling Xu, said in an exclusive interview with a People’s Daily reporter, “China has narrowed the gap in the field of aviation technology between itself and foreign advanced countries to about 15 years. With the support of China’s strong national (financial) power, coupled with the ingenuity of the Chinese people, the day that China’s aviation industry catches up with the United States is just around the corner.”

‘Iron Man 3′ Producer Dan Mintz Reveals China Co-Production Status, Offers Advice to Hollywood (Q&A) – The Hollywood Reporter – Okay, first off, Iron Man 3 is absolutely a DMG co-production. Obviously I can’t talk about story, but we’ll be filming in China before the end of the year and we’ll have an announcement about Chinese cast members sometime very soon—all will be revealed. About the co-production issue, of course, it’s kind of sensitive. What I will say is that I’ve lived in China for 20 years and we’ve been working at this a long time—and there’s no single loophole to be exploited, like some have been suggesting.

Delivery Service Ventures into Cyber Cuisine – Caixin – (Beijing) –The market is buzzing about a possible fund-raiser by S.F. Express (Group) Co., one of China’s major delivery services, for an unconventional but dramatic foray into e-commerce sales of imported food.

Shanghai’s Forgotten Maestro – Caixin – A less well-known, but equally fascinating tale is how classical music from the faraway West ever came to sink such deep roots in China. It is one that involves religion, reform, revolution, politics, education – and a passionate belief in the power of great music to transform individuals and nations alike. It spans four centuries and is replete with larger-than-life characters, heroic and flawed (and both), whose names should be known to anyone who loves classical music but, sadly, are not. (My husband, Jindong Cai, and I became so enthralled by this history that we wrote a book about it called “Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese.”)

Times Higher Education – Tombstone: The Untold Story of Mao’s Great Famine – This is one of the most important works of history written this century. Yang Jisheng, who retired in 2001 from a journalism post at the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, laboured in the archives of provincial China for more than a decade to produce his account of the great famine that blighted China from 1959 to 1962. His title is symbolic of the fact that this book is a memorial – to his foster father, who was one of the victims of the famine, to the other many millions who died then, and of the system that allowed such large-scale suffering to happen.

Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962: Jisheng Yang-Amazon-Tombstone is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, Tombstone is written both as a memorial to the lives lost—an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead—and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system. Ian Johnson, writing in The New York Review of Books, called the Chinese edition of Tombstone “groundbreaking…The most authoritative account of the great famine…One of the most important books to come out of China in recent years.”

Rhapsody in Red- How Western Classical Music Became Chinese: Sheila Melvin: Amazon – The authors capture the events with the voice of an insider and the perspective of a Westerner, presenting new information, original research and insights into a topic that has barely been broached elsewhere. “Every chapter is as exiting as it is revealing. The book is thoroughly researched, with superb bibliography. I am ecstatic; my students will be electrified.” – Clive M. Marks, Chairman, The London College of Music, Trestee, Trinity College of Music and The London Philarmonic Orchestra